docs-cli

Gather and serve all your dependency README files as a beautiful local documentation site.

Install

Install globally so you can use docs in any project:

npm install -g .

Or link it during development:

npm link

Setup

In your project root, create a docs.json config file, or run:

docs init

This creates a docs.json like:

[
  { "path": "node_modules/" },
  { "path": "vendor/" }
]

Add any folder paths you want scanned. The tool recursively finds every README.md inside them.

Commands

docs generate

Scans all configured paths and builds a static site into docs/.

docs generate
docs generate --config my-docs.json   # custom config path
docs generate --output .docs          # custom output dir
docs generate --verbose               # show each file found

docs serve

Generates and serves the docs site locally, then opens it in your browser.

docs serve
docs serve --port 8080                # custom port (default: 4242)
docs serve --watch                    # auto-rebuild on README changes
docs serve --no-open                  # don't open browser automatically

docs init

Creates a starter docs.json in the current directory.

docs init

Features

• 🔍 Deep scan — Recursively finds every README.md at any nesting depth
• 🌐 Static site — Clean, dark-themed site with sidebar navigation
• 🔎 Instant search — Fuzzy search across all docs with keyboard navigation (/ to focus)
• 📁 Grouped by source — Docs organized by their configured path
• ↔️ Prev / Next — Navigate between docs sequentially
• 👁️ Watch mode — --watch rebuilds and live-reloads on file changes
• 📱 Responsive — Works on mobile with a collapsible sidebar
• 🚀 Zero config — Works out of the box with a simple JSON file

Output structure

docs/
├── index.html       ← Home page with all docs listed
├── style.css        ← Shared stylesheet
├── app.js           ← Search, nav, and live reload
├── search.json      ← Search index
└── pages/
    ├── node-modules-express.html
    ├── node-modules-lodash.html
    └── ...

The docs/ folder is a fully self-contained static site — you can host it anywhere.

docs.json reference

[
  { "path": "node_modules/" },
  { "path": "vendor/" },
  { "path": "packages/" },
  { "path": "libs/third-party/" }
]

Each entry is an object with a path key. Paths are resolved relative to the directory where you run docs.